Clotilde Dusoulier Offers Food for Thought to Bloggers at George Brown College

I was already jug­gling a cou­ple of things I wanted to do on a recent mid-week night when I stopped by The Cook­book Store to check out the lat­est offer­ings and chat with its res­i­dent maven/manager and my long­time buddy Ali­son Fryer.

Ali­son is plugged into all things culi­nary hap­pen­ing in our city (Toronto, by the way) and asked if I was going to George Brown Col­lege that night to hear a talk on food blog­ging by Clotilde Dusoulier.

I already knew about this up-and-coming young French woman from her pop­u­lar lit­tle book “Choco­late & Zuc­chini: Daily Adven­tures in a Parisian Kitchen.” I had also heard that she was cur­rently at the chefs’ school in Strat­ford — the small Ontario town that has long been home to the famous the­atre fes­ti­val and was briefly home to me (more of that some other time) — as writer-in-residence.

What I didn’t know but soon real­ized as I sat lis­ten­ing to her that night in the small George Brown amphithe­atre among a large group of avid blog­gers, chefs and food­ies was that the 30-something Ms. Dusoulier is one bril­liant woman with charisma, charm and, in spite of her ris­ing fame, a good dose of humility.

She told how this all hap­pened. Born and raised in Paris, she went with her boyfriend to work in Cal­i­for­nia as a soft­ware engi­neer. Dur­ing two years there, she dis­cov­ered her latent pas­sion for food and cooking.

In 2003, she began her blog called Choco­late & Zuc­chini — inci­den­tally but not sur­pris­ingly, two of her favourite foods. She describes blog­ging as a “lit­tle sand­box that feels like home.” She loves the inter­ac­tion with oth­ers who become engaged by what she has to say.

Back liv­ing in Paris, Dusoulier, who is accent-free and flu­ent in both French and Eng­lish, has obvi­ously found her call­ing. In addi­tion to blog­ging and writ­ing books about food (she has penned a food guide to Paris), she also works as a con­sult­ing edi­tor, con­tributes to var­i­ous pub­li­ca­tions and does recipe development.

In her talk, she offered 10 rules of food blog­ging. Among them: Choose your focus: be gen­uine; set your­self apart; focus on great con­tent; keep learn­ing, and have fun!

Of all her pur­suits, blog­ging about food takes the cake. “You can share stuff with read­ers to inspire, edu­cate and enter­tain,” she said breath­lessly. “Food blog­gers are a great com­mu­nity. It’s impor­tant to fos­ter rela­tion­ships with those you admire,” she con­tin­ued. And last, “It’s all about pas­sion and shar­ing it.”

Couldn’t have said it bet­ter myself!

The next day, I grabbed my copy of “Choco­late & Zuc­chini” and turned to the recipe for Yogurt Cake men­tioned a cou­ple of times dur­ing her talk as a sta­ple of her blog, cook­book and recipe reper­toire. (Next, I plan to try her Tomato Tatin, My Grandmother’s Apple Cake and Lamb Tagine with Pears, all of which she rec­om­mended when I chat­ted with her briefly after her talk. Watch this space for more on them.)

The cake worked first time and is deli­cious. Here’s the recipe:

Yogurt Cake

The per­fect moist, not-too-sweet, plain cake to serve guests — or your­self — with a cup of tea or cof­fee, it’s also yummy with a scoop of ice cream or a spoon­ful of your favourite yogurt. Dusoulier writes in her intro that it’s great any time of day: “Break­fast, tea, dessert — any time at all, trust me.” I’ll add this bonus: it’s so easy to make, a child could do it.

¹⁄₃ cup veg­etable oil, plus 1 tsp to grease pan
1 cup plain yogurt, prefer­ably whole milk
1 cup gran­u­lated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp rum (optional)
1 ²⁄₃ cups all-purpose flour
1 ¹⁄₂ tsp bak­ing pow­der
1 tsp bak­ing soda
Good pinch of fine sea salt

Pre­heat oven to 350F.

Grease bot­tom and sides of 10-inch spring­form pan with oil. (Use parch­ment paper to line bot­tom of pan if not springform.)

In large bowl, whisk together yogurt and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beat­ing well after each addi­tion. Add vanilla, oil and rum; whisk again.

In another bowl, com­bine flour, bak­ing pow­der, bak­ing soda and salt. Add to yogurt mix­ture; stir until just combined.

Pour bat­ter into pre­pared pan. Bake in oven about 35 min­utes or until top is golden brown and cake tester inserted in cen­tre comes out clean. Trans­fer to rack; cool about 10 min­utes. Run knife around edge of cake to loosen. Unclip sides of spring­form pan. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.

Makes 8 to 10 servings.